Most frequently asked the question by people visiting ENT clinic is how to clean the ear and if we tell them it is not required, they will look at the ENT Specialist puzzled and ask “then how to clean the wax?”
Wax is normal secretion by glands of the skin of ear canal just as sweat produced by glands of the skin. Wax is a normal protective layer for the sensitive skin of ear canal. This coating helps repel water& traps dust particles & when you clean it out you make your ear more vulnerable to infection.
Usually, a small amount of wax is secreted which comes out on its own, a process helped by jaw movement.
Excess, hard wax causing obstruction is to be removed (20% of population have tendency to accumulate wax because of anatomical reasons) but if you try this by yourself you tend to push it further inside causing impacted wax and related problems like blocked ear, ear-pain, swelling in the ear and list doesn’t end here.
Chronic cleaning of ear causes dryness leading to itching, scratching and if you are cleaning it daily you know vicious circle. Continues itching may cause damage to skin and in turn bacterial & fungal infections.
Sometimes accidentally if you dig down too deep you may hurt your ear-drum (I have seen patients having ear bleed when they were doing cleaning jobs religiously & their kids just jumped over them).
Most patients are very ignorant about ear and use anything they have in their hands to insert in the ear. Anything means anything they find which can go inside the ear- hair-pins, pen, pencil, paper, keys. But really nothing is safe not even so-called sterile ear-buds available at chemist shop.
Now, the point is “ear cleaning is a useless job, you don’t need it if you don’t have the excess wax & you won’t be able to remove it if you have excess wax.” And yes it becomes a habit. To just clean the ear/use earbuds. People will often deny this fact.
